I wouldn't be so sure about that. If the OP was being sarcastic, I didn't see any hint of it. Remember, this is/., where I once posted a blog entry asking if passengers should be allowed to carry guns on commercial flights, and people actually responded saying that it was a good idea.
I remember reading that the 747 had significant problems with the engine case (what is it called, the cowling?) not being strong enough to hold the engine without deforming too much and had to be significantly redesigned. Was that P&W's issue or Boeing's?
While there was risk involved there was obvious profit to be made.
It only looks that way with hindsight. At the time it wasn't a dead cert that the 747 was going to be a success. Some people probably thought there was obvious profit to be made from Concorde, but it didn't quite work out that way once the demand for supersonic flight failed to materialize and they never sold a single plane.
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans....
Yes, eventually the technology will improve to the point that corporate investors will see a short-term profit potential, and at that point the dollars will start flowing in. But it is going to take massive government investment to get us there. As long as the US is dragging its feet, we'd better hope that the EU or Russia or China can step up, because otherwise we are just not going to see people on the Moon again in our lifetimes.
Didn't Boeing take a bit of a risk with the 747 since it would take many decades to recover the cost of its development? I agree with a lot of what you say, but there are industries out there where long term investments are made, and civil aerospace is one of them, so I think you might have picked a bad example to make your point there. Personally I wish more companies would make these long term investments rather than just cherry pick whatever will pay off this quarter. Japanese companies like Honda are a good example, look at their research into robotics. It could be decades before they turn a profit on any technology that's a descendant of the Asimo robot, but they keep plugging away at it anyway. Honda has always had a long term vision and has worked steadily towards it.
Scenario 1 - Foreign student comes to USA, pays tuition fees, gets education. Proceeds to somehow stay in the US where he puts his education to use. US economy benefits from this student's knowledge gained from his investment in US education even though the US actually made money on his education.
Scenario 2 - Foreign student comes to USA, pays tuition fees, gets education. Is unable to stay in the US for whatever reason and goes back home. US economy loses the benefit of another educated person, foreign economy gets that benefit instead, and the US resources spent educating them end up being lost on the US.
Bottom line: let them stay. If they're better qualified to do the job, hire them. Earmarking jobs for Americans is discriminatory and there is no business case for that kind of protectionism. Let the free labour market decide who is qualified to do what for what price.
If we employed a bunch of very smart people here on Earth to build a castle made out of cheese, we'd also promote a lot of rapid development in dairy-related construction techniques, and that money would recirculate back into local economies - etc, etc, etc. But we generally expect a bit more from a big project than just "people got paid and it doesn't matter what they got paid to do".
Building castles out of cheese would be a true "dig a hole and fill it in again" situation. But exploring space is a long term project for the species. Its ultimate payoff is not measured in a single human lifetime. Someone else posted that he is not going to see the benefits in his lifetime therefore it is pointless, but the human species is about more than what goes on in a single generation. The benefits we get in the meantime are small by comparison to the big payoff of turning us into a space-faring race.
Think of it as the modern version of building a cathedral. And also think of what I posted elsewhere, "what is the point of a baby?"
> just realize that the next thing we need to figure out in space is how to get people into space both safely and cheaply.
No, the next thing we need to figure out is why the hell anyone would want to go to space (save the novelty of it). Until we terraform the moon, mine on the asteroid belt or develop cost-effective agriculture on a space station, there is no practical reason to go to space and surely nothing to justify spending my hard-earned $$$ on it. I always been a liberal democrat but this is enough to make me switch sides.
... and at the end of WWII the previous superpower (Europe in general terms, though mainly England and France) was devastated by war. The newly created American factories were diverted from the war effort into the rebuilding effort, and a new superpower was born. There was a time when the US produced and manufactured most of the world's goods and food. THAT is what created the after-war boom years. The new deal however, laid much of the groundwork to make this possible.
Also remember that WWII was a relatively short war, especially for the US. A short war can have some economic advantage, as long as you win of course. A protracted war will always lead to economic problems, even for the victor (see : the current Iraq war and its role in the economic crisis).
True. War can have unexpected positive outcomes though. Germany's rail network was obliterated and they were able to build it from scratch to suit current needs. England's came out a bit better, so the current network is stuck with the old bottlenecks that it always had since Victorian times. To this day the Brits have a hard time getting their trains to run on time, the Germans find it a lot easier.
Interesting, but there are people who claim that the New Deal (and the big government spending that went with it) did not pull America out of the Great Depression. They say that instead it was WWII (and the big government spending that went with it), which is a bit of a contradiction.
The New Deal (or the space program) was not a broken window. WWII on the other hand was a big broken window, and you could have achieved a lot of the same effect by building all those carriers, destroyers, tanks and bombers and promptly dumping them in the sea. But you can't really compare that to a public works program or a space program where there are useful spin-offs, to say nothing of taking into account the wasted resources spent raising, rearing, and educating a generation of men who end up getting slaughtered.
As stimulus packages go, space exploration is a pretty good deal.
NASA plans on using $50 million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space.... More stimulus funds that 99% of the middle class will never see. How is this gonna help my 401k?
Ah, the old "spending money on the space program means ferrying dollar bills into orbit and dumping them there" argument. One day people will get it into their heads that money spent on the space program is spent pretty much exclusively on Earth where jobs are created, new technologies are developed, and countless other economic and social spin-offs are generated. In the meantime, I'll have to keep on posting this reminder.
2 predictions: * Lots of slashdot users trying to post something witty about why this is a new story * trolls saying how this is everything we should expect and therefore should ignore.
to all those who disengaged their brain I ask, what would you do in their position? Hope your instruments work as designed without testing them? Either way, please devise a better test for life as we know it than life as we know it.
Thank you for being one of the first to post a non-redundant non-predictable post actually worth reading and that adds something to the discussion. I was wondering how much more scrolling I was going to have to do. If I had mod points I'd be making liberal use of the 'redundant', 'off topic' and 'overrated' tags around about now.
Daniel Goncalves, the 25 year old law firm computer technician arrested on Thursday, reportedly hacked in to the Angelâ(TM)s AOL email account, used that information to retrieve the login details for the P2P.com from the Godaddy.com domain account. Goncalves performed an internal âoedomain pushâ transfer,which in effect transfered the domain name to another Godaddy account that he owned. Goncalves reportedly also falsified Paypal.com transaction records in an attempt to cover his trail and provide evidence that made it appear that he purchased the domain name for $900 from the Angels. The domain was listed in the name of Daniel Louvado during this time period (a bogus name consisting of Goncalves first name and his fiances last name).
In late 2006, Goncalves put the domain name P2P.com up for sale on eBay.com and on September 24, 2006 the eBay.com auction for the domain P2P.com closed in the amount of $111,000.
Spot on. Similarly, anyone remember Radio Rentals in the UK? They hung on to that name right up until they all but disappeared in the 1990s even though it had been many decades since they rented out radios. They were a common sight on UK high streets and were so well established that they didn't dare change their name.
Some things, whether the Buddhas of Banyan or the site of the first ever human feet to walk on the moon, are just too important to be permanently damaged. It's very hard to undo. Think of the emotional impact. Two hundred years from now, some tourist will set eyes on the first ever human footprint on a celestial body, and will be struck with awe at the ingenuity of man. Or, he will see a site that was ransacked by short-sightedness and carelessness and will shake his head at the stupidity of man. Let future generations decide what they want to do with something this important. It's not our place to decide for them.
"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come â" but we believe not too long into the future â" I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record â" that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
â" Eugene A. Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander. Last man to walk on the moon, December 14, 1972.
So is the earth (it is the 7th most abundant metal). Titanium is expensive because it is expensive to refine. Wikipedia indicates that more titanium dioxide is produced than titanium metal (the dioxide is used as a white pigment) and that current reserves are on the order of about 120 years of current production:
Fair enough. But in the event of developing the moon, it would be handy to have access to raw materials on the moon instead of having to ship everything from Earth. I'd imagine Titanium would come in useful for a lot of applications up there. It'd be cool if a spacecraft could be manufactured on the moon, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't be so sure about that. If the OP was being sarcastic, I didn't see any hint of it. Remember, this is /., where I once posted a blog entry asking if passengers should be allowed to carry guns on commercial flights, and people actually responded saying that it was a good idea.
Pareidolia
I remember reading that the 747 had significant problems with the engine case (what is it called, the cowling?) not being strong enough to hold the engine without deforming too much and had to be significantly redesigned. Was that P&W's issue or Boeing's?
While there was risk involved there was obvious profit to be made.
It only looks that way with hindsight. At the time it wasn't a dead cert that the 747 was going to be a success. Some people probably thought there was obvious profit to be made from Concorde, but it didn't quite work out that way once the demand for supersonic flight failed to materialize and they never sold a single plane.
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans. ...
Yes, eventually the technology will improve to the point that corporate investors will see a short-term profit potential, and at that point the dollars will start flowing in. But it is going to take massive government investment to get us there. As long as the US is dragging its feet, we'd better hope that the EU or Russia or China can step up, because otherwise we are just not going to see people on the Moon again in our lifetimes.
Didn't Boeing take a bit of a risk with the 747 since it would take many decades to recover the cost of its development? I agree with a lot of what you say, but there are industries out there where long term investments are made, and civil aerospace is one of them, so I think you might have picked a bad example to make your point there. Personally I wish more companies would make these long term investments rather than just cherry pick whatever will pay off this quarter. Japanese companies like Honda are a good example, look at their research into robotics. It could be decades before they turn a profit on any technology that's a descendant of the Asimo robot, but they keep plugging away at it anyway. Honda has always had a long term vision and has worked steadily towards it.
(ovo)<^>
They way they shake their heads when saying yes completely fucks with my mind every time!
(ovo)
Scenario 1 - Foreign student comes to USA, pays tuition fees, gets education. Proceeds to somehow stay in the US where he puts his education to use. US economy benefits from this student's knowledge gained from his investment in US education even though the US actually made money on his education.
Scenario 2 - Foreign student comes to USA, pays tuition fees, gets education. Is unable to stay in the US for whatever reason and goes back home. US economy loses the benefit of another educated person, foreign economy gets that benefit instead, and the US resources spent educating them end up being lost on the US.
Bottom line: let them stay. If they're better qualified to do the job, hire them. Earmarking jobs for Americans is discriminatory and there is no business case for that kind of protectionism. Let the free labour market decide who is qualified to do what for what price.
Building castles out of cheese would be a true "dig a hole and fill it in again" situation. But exploring space is a long term project for the species. Its ultimate payoff is not measured in a single human lifetime. Someone else posted that he is not going to see the benefits in his lifetime therefore it is pointless, but the human species is about more than what goes on in a single generation. The benefits we get in the meantime are small by comparison to the big payoff of turning us into a space-faring race.
Think of it as the modern version of building a cathedral. And also think of what I posted elsewhere, "what is the point of a baby?"
> just realize that the next thing we need to figure out in space is how to get people into space both safely and cheaply.
No, the next thing we need to figure out is why the hell anyone would want to go to space (save the novelty of it). Until we terraform the moon, mine on the asteroid belt or develop cost-effective agriculture on a space station, there is no practical reason to go to space and surely nothing to justify spending my hard-earned $$$ on it. I always been a liberal democrat but this is enough to make me switch sides.
What is the point of a baby?
... and at the end of WWII the previous superpower (Europe in general terms, though mainly England and France) was devastated by war. The newly created American factories were diverted from the war effort into the rebuilding effort, and a new superpower was born. There was a time when the US produced and manufactured most of the world's goods and food. THAT is what created the after-war boom years. The new deal however, laid much of the groundwork to make this possible.
Also remember that WWII was a relatively short war, especially for the US. A short war can have some economic advantage, as long as you win of course. A protracted war will always lead to economic problems, even for the victor (see : the current Iraq war and its role in the economic crisis).
True. War can have unexpected positive outcomes though. Germany's rail network was obliterated and they were able to build it from scratch to suit current needs. England's came out a bit better, so the current network is stuck with the old bottlenecks that it always had since Victorian times. To this day the Brits have a hard time getting their trains to run on time, the Germans find it a lot easier.
I'll keep posting this, too, I guess:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy
Interesting, but there are people who claim that the New Deal (and the big government spending that went with it) did not pull America out of the Great Depression. They say that instead it was WWII (and the big government spending that went with it), which is a bit of a contradiction.
The New Deal (or the space program) was not a broken window. WWII on the other hand was a big broken window, and you could have achieved a lot of the same effect by building all those carriers, destroyers, tanks and bombers and promptly dumping them in the sea. But you can't really compare that to a public works program or a space program where there are useful spin-offs, to say nothing of taking into account the wasted resources spent raising, rearing, and educating a generation of men who end up getting slaughtered.
As stimulus packages go, space exploration is a pretty good deal.
NASA plans on using $50 million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space. ... More stimulus funds that 99% of the middle class will never see. How is this gonna help my 401k?
Ah, the old "spending money on the space program means ferrying dollar bills into orbit and dumping them there" argument. One day people will get it into their heads that money spent on the space program is spent pretty much exclusively on Earth where jobs are created, new technologies are developed, and countless other economic and social spin-offs are generated. In the meantime, I'll have to keep on posting this reminder.
You think the writing is bad? How about the annoying jump-to-the-bottom-of-the-page-after-a-few-seconds-for-no-fucking-reason effect?
I think it's an R with an underscore representing what we now recognise as a cursor. Looks like a B though.
2 predictions:
* Lots of slashdot users trying to post something witty about why this is a new story
* trolls saying how this is everything we should expect and therefore should ignore.
to all those who disengaged their brain I ask, what would you do in their position? Hope your instruments work as designed without testing them? Either way, please devise a better test for life as we know it than life as we know it.
Thank you for being one of the first to post a non-redundant non-predictable post actually worth reading and that adds something to the discussion. I was wondering how much more scrolling I was going to have to do. If I had mod points I'd be making liberal use of the 'redundant', 'off topic' and 'overrated' tags around about now.
Quoth TFA:
Spot on. Similarly, anyone remember Radio Rentals in the UK? They hung on to that name right up until they all but disappeared in the 1990s even though it had been many decades since they rented out radios. They were a common sight on UK high streets and were so well established that they didn't dare change their name.
So assuming it's for real, how do they cancel the spin?
Contra-rotating fans.
Some things, whether the Buddhas of Banyan or the site of the first ever human feet to walk on the moon, are just too important to be permanently damaged. It's very hard to undo. Think of the emotional impact. Two hundred years from now, some tourist will set eyes on the first ever human footprint on a celestial body, and will be struck with awe at the ingenuity of man. Or, he will see a site that was ransacked by short-sightedness and carelessness and will shake his head at the stupidity of man. Let future generations decide what they want to do with something this important. It's not our place to decide for them.
In fact, per TFA, the Church has nothing to do with it. Rather, it's the Big Brother socialist control freak segment of the political class.
The article makes many excellent points. Read it, even if doing so is against *your* religion.
Fianna Fail would be a bit horrified if you called them 'socialist.' The Irish Republic has never had a socialist government.
BTW, I picked my username many years ago and I'm stuck with it. I'd pick something different nowadays.
"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come â" but we believe not too long into the future â" I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record â" that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
â" Eugene A. Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander. Last man to walk on the moon, December 14, 1972.
So is the earth (it is the 7th most abundant metal). Titanium is expensive because it is expensive to refine. Wikipedia indicates that more titanium dioxide is produced than titanium metal (the dioxide is used as a white pigment) and that current reserves are on the order of about 120 years of current production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium#Occurrence
Fair enough. But in the event of developing the moon, it would be handy to have access to raw materials on the moon instead of having to ship everything from Earth. I'd imagine Titanium would come in useful for a lot of applications up there. It'd be cool if a spacecraft could be manufactured on the moon, for example.
The question is, 'is there life out there?'
The answer is a profound one whether it's yes or no.